Friday, February 03, 2006

The Moot.

Yesterday I had my first Moot, which essentially is a mock trial for law students. Here is a "condensed transcript" of the turning point in the moot, which was an appeal case concerning contracts:

Junior Counsel for the Appellant (me): "It is therefore submitted, Your Lordship, that the Respondent was negligent within the meaning of section 2(1) of the misrepresentation Act 1967, as there were no reasonable grounds for believing that the represented facts were true.

Judge: "Mr. Pedersen, is this a question of fact or law?"

Junior Counsel: "Of fact, My Lord."

Judge: "Can we therefore not assume that the trial judge has considered the matter and decided that there were reasonable grounds?"

Junior Counsel (after standing for a while with his mouth open staring silently at the judge): "I do not know what to answer to that."

Judge: "Very well, carry-on."

Junior Counsel: "Yes, My Lord."

(More silence from the Junior Council)

Judge: "I believe this brings us to submission number 5 of your skeleton argument."

Junior Counsel: "submission number 5 is a point on section 2(2), which has the same basis as section 2(1). There is therefore no further submssion, thank you Your Lordship."

To say that it went bad is an understatement. In one sentence the judge took away the basis for all my arguments. The experience was depressing as I must have misunderstood the whole thing and has left me very confused.

3 Comments:

At 06 February, 2006 16:44, Blogger David Hamstra said...

Ouch!

 
At 28 July, 2008 04:03, Anonymous Anonymous said...

HI there. I was typing on Google for the word "locus standi" and it directed me to your blog. And its really amazes me especially your courage to study law at your age. Your mooting & mock trial experience remind me of mine when I was doing my post graduate program. Above all, I really admire you as a Christian. I will definitely come back to your blog for all the interesting posts you have. Good luck.

Regards,

Sylvia

 
At 28 July, 2008 16:02, Blogger Torsten Pedersen said...

Hi Sylvia,

Thanks for your comment. I'd almost forgotten about the moot. I survived the experience and I'm still studying law, although now I writing my LLM dissertation. Studying at my age as been been an experience, but worthwhile.

Hopefully your moot experience wasn't as painful as mine. Are you today working in law?

 

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